


Climbing Mountains the Size of Pebbles

by em_merp



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Angst, Case Fic, F/M, Homophobic John Winchester, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Pre-Canon, Prostitution, Season 9, Underage Prostitution, but it gets better, first of all, fuck john winchester, its not all sad promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_merp/pseuds/em_merp
Summary: It takes a long time for Dean to find peace in himself."The first is sophomore stone eyed Idelle Mehta, who blushes at Dean under the bleachers, and when she tells him how pretty he is in between kisses as Dean's hands are learning how to undo her bra, he feels himself wilt away under what she probably had considered praise. He moves his mouth to her throat, and works her till she forgets her name. When he looks in the mirror, later, after Sam has conked out on his bed cuddled up to Catcher in the Rye, he looks his reflection in the eye and tells himself he is not pretty."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/OFC, Dean Winchester/OMC
Comments: 16
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK so fair warning, there is a brief allusion to rape so BE ADVISED  
> there are also elements of underage prostitution in this fic  
> This first chapter is very much a sad dean winchester fic, but i promise it'll get happier.  
> Please enjoy!

The first is sophomore stone eyed Idelle Mehta, who blushes at Dean under the bleachers, and when she tells him how pretty he is in between kisses as Dean's hands are learning how to undo her bra, he feels himself wilt away under what she probably had considered praise. He moves his mouth to her throat, and works her till she forgets her name. When he looks in the mirror, later, after Sam has conked out on his bed cuddled up to  _ Catcher in the Rye _ , he looks his reflection in the eye and tells himself he is not pretty. 

Men are not pretty - pretty is a word for girls and fags, not hunters. not Dean. Not John’s boy. 

___________________________

The actual first time, he was four years old, and his mother calls him her beautiful boy as she tucks him into bed for the night, before she tells him that angels are watching over him with a smile. 

The next morning he wonders why the angels were watching over him when she needed them more. He wants to ask John, but he doesn’t. He wants to ask John a lot of things, but he doesn’t. He holds onto Sam and hopes the angels will watch over his baby brother.

_________________________________

He's 10 when John teaches him how to work out, how to stretch and utilize everything his PE teachers try to teach him, but he’s 15 when John starts commenting on his body - too lean, not enough muscle. 

John says that would be fine, but his face is too pretty, that his body needs to look as masculine as possible to make up for it, to stop looking like such a damn fairy. (They both know he means he looks too much like her, and Dean can’t if he should take the compliment or feel the insult.) John gets him weights, takes him to the gym even, says, “It’s time to make sure those monsters know to fear the Winchester men.”

Dean preens under the attention, and he holds the day close when Bobby calls John a damn fool with his boys, when Amanda Heckering says it must suck to live the way he does, when Sam goes on his college tirades, when he wishes his dad would clap a hand on his shoulder, look him in the eyes and say, “I’m proud of you, son.”

But he doesn’t get that - he’s got something better. He’s got a father to make sure he grows up the way he’s supposed to, into a man. 

He tries to remember that when he takes Sam ice skating and buys him a ticket to see  _ The Lion King _ .

  
  


_________________________________

He’s 16 and he’s off to burn the bones of nuns that loved each other as a birthday gift from Dad, and his body is a thrum of  _ he knows he knows he knows he knows he knows he knows he knows he knows -  _

_________________________________

He’s 19 and feeling gross after a double shifter suicide when he runs into her at the latest no-name-and-fuck-you-if-you-ask bar. 

Her name is Rhonda.

She’s 21 with her own apartment and curtains and bills and responsibilities, and Dean doesn’t belong here. Rhonda is an actual adult, and likes fish, and satin panties.

She’s also convinced she’ll like Dean in satin panties, and she must be damn persuasive, cause Dean’s kneeling in the center of her bed with them wrapped snug around him, waiting for her judgement. 

They feel… They feel encasing, and he feels trapped by them, by the way they were not made to accommodate male anatomy, and Dean can feel the head of his cock peeking out of them. But that’s not the problem. 

The problem is Dean is hard.

They are soft, and delicate, and pretty, and they make Dean feel soft, and delicate, and pretty, and he can’t. He can’t be a delicate thing to be cherished, because he is a hunter, a killer, because he is John’s boy. 

So he’s kneeling in the center of her bed and he’s focused on the fluffy comforter beneath his knees so that he doesn’t have to feel the soft texture on his cock, waiting for the scoff, the laughter, the “Holy shit, how are you such a  _ faggot _ ?”

So he feels just a little off balance (well, a little  _ more _ off balance) when she puts a warm hand on his thigh, just a gentle touch, and says, “I’m gonna make you feel so good, you’re gonna remember me the rest of your life.”

Dean says, “Bluh?” which is really more eloquent than he expected to sound. 

Rhonda doesn’t seem to mind though, and she moves her touch up and in, avoiding his cock, and she looks him in the eyes and says, “I’m gonna fuck you the way a pretty thing like you deserves,” and he shirks away, not enough to run, but enough for her big eyes to notice. 

Rhonda also has a collection of silk ties that have no business feeling as good as they do around his wrists. 

Later, after they had gone to the bathroom and cleaned themselves off with the washcloths she kept under her sink, she pulled him back into her bed and up to her chest, and said he was amazing, said “You were so good for me, Dean.” 

but Sam was aching to leave and Dad was in the wind dragging Sam by the neck behind him and he couldn’t see Bobby as often as he needed to, cause Dad wouldn’t let him see the light of day - again - if he caught wind of it, so what was Dean good at, exactly, if strangers he’d only seen during the darkest hours of the night left the only prominent marks on his skin? 

Though John had left his own brands on Dean, because he loved him. He loved his son enough to keep him straight, and Dean’s damn happy his dad loved him enough to do it, and happier still that Sam never needed those extra teachings from Dad. 

Every mark on his body had long since faded, saving the marks on his torso and inner thighs that Rhonda had given him, but that didn’t stop Dean from shouldering them wherever he went. He felt the bruises and the cuts pressing into his veins from every angle. If he saw Sam today he doubted his body would be able to hold a hug from him without breaking. 

  
  


Oh John had left his mark on Dean, certainly, as had Rhonda, and every man who funded Sam’s childhood, and he may never see any of them again. 

So what was it that he was good at? 

He kept her panties tucked in his duffel, and carried the weight of her everywhere he went. 

Truthfully, he never forgot any of them. 

  
  
  


__________________________________

He’s 17 the first time he sucks a man off behind a bar. 

It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just for money’s sake cause Sammy has a field trip to the California Science Center, and he only has enough to cover the motel’s charge and food for Sam. 

The man calls him a pretty little thing once he’s on his knees, and Dean stares at the ring on the man’s third finger as he feeds Dean his cock. 

He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t. He plays up the moaning, the choking, makes sure he gets his money’s worth, but he doesn’t like it. The man makes his skin crawl, even as Dean looks up into his hazel eyes.

The man is, fortunately, quick, and tosses a 20 down to Dean once he’s tucked back in. The man leaves first, and Dean figures he’ll be able to snag the extra five Sam needs from some poor bastard in the bar. 

When he comes back, Sam’s still up, and decidedly upset with Dean’s latest disappearing act, if the bitch face he’s sporting is anything to go by. 

“What’s her name this time?” he says. 

“Who’s name?” Dean asks, tossing his key and jacket onto the table by the door. 

“This town’s girlfriend,” Sam says, with the tone of someone trying to explain physics to fish.

Oh. Right. Girlfriend. Right. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Dean says, waggling his eyebrows at Sam.

Sam flattens his lips in disapproval, and says, “I think it’s high time we make an honest woman of you, Dean.”

Dean narrows his eyes. “Think you’re the girl here Samantha-”

“Dean!-”

“Since you’re such a fuckin pussy-”

“Oh my god-”

“Bitch!” 

“Fucking jerk!” Sam laughs, and Dean shoots him finger guns as he saunters off to take a shower. 

He’s still chuckling when he hears Sam say, none too quietly through thin motel walls, “Jackass.”

He’s toweling his hair off as he steps out of the bathroom, and he drops his towel overtop Sam’s snoring form, grinning to himself. 

He hopes he never has to do that again to make sure Sam gets the childhood he deserves. 

The next man calls him “girly,” and comes on his face. 

  
  


_______________________________________

  
  


Sam’s away at Stanford, and John’s away hunting, and Dean’s alone. 

The man he blows outside the bar comes onto him first, saying he’d look pretty on his knees. And, fuck, he wished people would stop calling him that, stop treating him like a two dollar whore that needs to be buttered up for a screw. 

He knows why they do it of course - the men can’t be gay, can’t wanna fuck a man if they spend their time pretending he’s got a set of tits to match his face, and if they never shove a hand down his pants, they get to pretend he’s it’s a pussy wrapped up in his pretty panties - and that’s maybe the funniest part of all of this, cause he fucking  _ is,  _ they’re just such pussies (Ha!) that they never bother to check. 

And he doesn’t even  _ do  _ that anymore, Sam doesn’t need the money, doesn’t even need Dean anymore, and the one upside is that Dean’s not responsible for the kid’s meals and clothes and goddamned field trips. 

He isn’t gay. Everything he did was for Sam’s sake. It meant nothing, and if he tells himself that enough, maybe he’ll stop feeling the shame of it all. 

But John isn’t here - he never is, these days - Sam’s away, Bobby’s got his own case, a werewolf in Oklahoma - no one’s here, no one’s gonna know, and Dean needs the proof.

He’s gonna blow this man, and he’s gonna hate it, because he isn’t into cock, and it’ll make for good closure - one last time, and he doesn’t even have to sell himself.

He’s heading for the bar’s back door, over by the bathrooms, and is steadfastly ignoring the voice in his head that sounds like Bobby going, “Yeah, sucking dick to prove you don’t like dick. Foolproof plan, Dean.”

He loves it, 

And maybe that’s the most shameful thing about it. But then the man pulls him to his feet, tugging his pants down, jerking him off calling him a pretty lil thing in pretty pink panties, gray eyes boring into his, and  _ Oh, God, this wasn’t supposed to be so goddamn good, _ and Dean spills all over himself like the two bit whore he isn’t, losing all plausible deniability. 

The man called Dean pretty cause he believed it - he didn’t want the illusion at all. 

So what does that make Dean?

He climbs into the Impala later, and the Bobby in his head says, “Damn idjit.” It sounds more fond than Dean deserves. 

  
  


(Later, falling asleep, he thinks that maybe these encounters mean everything.)

  
  
  


_________________________

For the few weeks he knows her, he thinks that Cassie cures him. He thinks that maybe she can help carry his other burden alongside this one. 

He sits her down and says, “I got something to say.”

Her eyebrow quirks up, but she says nothing. 

“I’m uh - I got this thing? That I need to tell you about. And it’s uh, kind of a big thing? So don’t uh, freak.”

“You mean you’re not just another pretty boy?”

He hopes like hell she doesn’t see the way his shoulders tuck in away from her at that, and just in case she does, he says, “Sweetheart, I’m not like any pretty boy you’ve met,” just for good measure. 

She leans forward in her seat and tucks her fists under her chin. “Is it a secret wife? Are you James Bond?”

“No, it’s uh-”   
  


“Wait! You’re secretly a movie star!” she laughs. 

“I hunt monsters.”

He sees the moment her face freezes, hears the cogs turning. And then he sees the moment her face melts into something that he can’t reach, and he knows it’s over.

There is no cure for a thing like him. 

  
  


_________________________________________

  
  
  


Azazel doesn’t say it, but the way he crowds Dean’s space, and eyes him up and down in John’s body, Dean knows what he’s thinking. 

Dean should have expected it. Everyone seems to want a piece of him - why not demons too?

Later he dreams of John calling him, “Daddy’s little faggot,” and John’s eyes never once flash yellow. 

_________________________________

Dad dies. It feels like relief. 

Why does it feel like relief?

Bobby buys him apple pie and leaves strawberry ice cream in the freezer and makes him sift through the whole damn library when he aches to try and rip cars in half with his hands. 

___________________________________

He ditches Sam for a night and picks a man up at a bar, cause fuck it. He’s gonna die anyways, and what’s God gonna do, huh? Send him to hell 2.0? 

He knows what’s coming to him, and he doesn’t want it, but he’s always been the footnote to Sam’s story. Sammy should get his life, find a pretty girl to give Mom’s ring. And if Sam gets the happy ending he deserves, then Dean can at least get fucked once. 

His name is Daniel, and he’s so nice Dean could cry. 

He  _ plans  _ to fuck Daniel for the night in his shitty piss stained motel, then fuck back off to Sam. But Daniel didn’t seem to get the memo that Dean doesn’t have mind blowing sex with men, cause he takes him back to his house (A goddamned _ house _ , and there isn’t even a wife puttering in empty rooms!).

He kisses Dean, warm and slow, and opens him up the same way. When he presses in, Dean feels full, and good, and he lets himself believe Daniel when he tells Dean that he’s amazing. 

Dean stays for the weekend, and the shame doesn’t kick in till he’s a state away from Sam and he’s realizing he probably smells like cologne and aftershave that he doesn’t use.

Sam kills Gordon Walker (with some fuckin razor wire, which is the most badass shit Dean’s ever heard of, but he won’t tell Sam just how awesome that is-) 

He fucks a girl after, and he gives his best shit eating from when she says, “Come on, pretty boy, fuck me.”

He thinks it’s worse that he likes fucking her too - he’s got a foot in the door of being- being a fucking- 

He doesn’t remember her name when he leaves the motel, but she stays with him too. 

  
  
  
  


______________________________________

Eyes are pushing out of their sockets, air out of lungs, bone out of skin, but Dean’s mind stays firmly where it is when Alastair pushes in, presses in, calling out “pretty boy,” and Dean screams, screams Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam NO - 

20 years later Dean’s singing, “Pretty boy, pretty boy,” - he’s a pretty boy, and Alastair tells him pretty boys always get what’s coming to them. 

20 years later Dean is biting a soul’s ribs broken when a burning light blinds him, and he is - he is- he is where he deserves to be. 

But the light carries him out anyways. 

___________________________________

  
  


The guy - the  _ angel, there are fucking angels, and they’re just as dickish as fucking demons, goddammit- Ha!  _ Has unfairly blue eyes, and his voice sounds like thunder cracks and it makes Dean feel like lightning about to burst. 

The guy (Angel! He’s a fucking angel!) is called Castiel, and he’s the biggest dick Dean’s ever met. 

__________________________________________

Uriel is an angel, and he’s the biggest dick Dean’s ever met, and Cas might be an okay guy. 

Cas tells him he has questions, has doubts, and Dean’s the only person he’s told that.

Cas raised him from perdition and left a mark on his shoulder to prove it. 

Cas tells him how to get Sam out of his ‘Fiery and demonic passion,’ meeting with Lilith. (And after he pulls Sam’s ass out the fire, he’s gonna sign Chuck up for a writing class, and then make him  _ stop writing anything at all. _ )

Cas tells him he made an exception for Dean, because Dean’s different. 

He really does have the bluest eyes. 

_________________________________

Sometimes Dean puts his hand over the handprint on his shoulder, and he feels it like captured lightning churning in his being. 

He’s not sure how Cas would feel about that, so he doesn’t mention it. 

He holds the handprint and he feels  _ saved _ .

_________________________________________ 

  
  


Lisa likes to say she’s got the best guy in town, and Dean will agree, and grab Ben by the shoulders as if to present him to her, and Ben will giggle and shove Dean away and Lisa will smile and kiss Dean on the cheek. 

Dean will sit and pray - sometimes to god, in alcohol fueled bursts, but that’s mostly in the beginning. 

Mostly to Sam - he takes mental snapshots and sends them, sends him the jokes he heard and the memories he dreamt and all the strength he can spare. 

But sometimes he prays to Cas. He doesn’t quite know what he prays, cause he can never manage to put words together. But he prays. 

No one ever answers. 

__________________________________

Lisa finds out about the panties, and it takes everything in him not to cut and run the moment he sees her peering in the back of his underwear drawer.

She sends Ben off to stay with his aunt for the weekend and makes Dean try on every pair he has, and then works them off his body to fit herself around him. 

When Ben gets back, he asks what they did while he was gone, and Dean turns beet red while Lisa says, “Oh, we just played some games.”

Dean thinks this is better than he deserves. 

He still prays every night. 

_________________________________________

The creepy afro guy looks at him and calls him pretty. 

His first instinct is to drop to his knees, cause that’s what he does in these exchanges, and he feels the bile rise up in his throat. 

He’s maybe more surprised than he should be when the guy starts throwing him around - they always do that, but this is definitively less sexy than what Dean is used to. 

At least he’s not wearing the panties he’d bought a month ago, thank fuck, and Dean swallows blood thanking small miracles. 

He thinks of how he’s probably just lost Lisa, again, as he takes the freak’s head off. He wonders what would’ve happened if he wasn’t so fucking pretty to fucking vampires.

Bobby makes him watch Twilight a week after, and it’s so stupid him and Bobby fall to pieces laughing about it. (Well, Dean falls to pieces. Bobby grunts and tries to look surly, but Dean can tell from the way he purses his lips and squints his eyes shut that he thinks the movie’s funny too.)

Sam rolls his eyes at them and goes up to his room, and Bobby gets him a beer and asks him, “So how long you’ve been 17, kid?”

Dean chokes on the beer, and thinks,  _ This is what I wanted to give to Ben _ . He thinks,  _ John never would’ve done this.  _ Dean says, in his best imitation of Sam when he was all teenaged and angsty and insufferable, “A while.”

Bobby snorts and says, “Idjit.”

_____________________________________

His best friend is God, and God is dead. 

He still catches himself praying to fuck knows who.

_____________________________________

He’s driving a piece of shit Honda Who-Gives-A-Flying-Fuck to the closest Gas n’ Sip when Cas just. Pops in to say hi. 

He is, at the very least, clothed and bees-free. 

“Hello Dean.”

Dean would love to boot Cas out the car, cause he didn’t sign up to be a caretaker of the insane, and he just wants some fucking pie that he can’t trust Sam to get reliably enough. So he just grunts. 

Cas doesn’t say anything, and Dean thinks that’s it, he’s just got an extra shadow to the convenience store now.

Then Cas,  _ the fucker, _ decides that no, awkward conversation is just what they need. He says, “Have you ever been to hell, Dean?” and oh,  _ fuck no, _ Dean’s not doing this. 

He’s just decided that telling Cas to go fuck himself is maybe a bad idea, when Cas keeps talking.  _ Figures. _ “I have, Dean. The heat alone… It’s not a good place, Dean, I sincerely hope that you never see it,” and  _ fuck,  _ why does he have to look so goddamn sincere about it all?

“I went to pull a soul out - my whole garrison, back when we had a garrison, went, to pull a soul out of hell,” and maybe if Dean stares straight out the dashboard and thinks angry thoughts, Cas will  _ shut up, _ “We were all looking, but I got there first. You have no idea… humans can’t comprehend souls, of course, your eyes weren’t made for it, but Dean… it was the most beautiful soul I’d seen.”

Dean is not equipped for this, he just wanted some goddamn pie, none of this hell bullshit.

He’s still glaring through the dashboard when he feels blue eyes staring into him, and he hears Cas’ voice like it’s coming from the other side of a tunnel say like a benediction, “Your soul looks just like his, Dean.”

And nope, that’s it, Dean’s done, thank you very much. Dean flips on the radio to the first available station, then flips the volume up, and if Cas has more shit to say it’s officially not his problem. 

They make their way to the Gas n’ Sip listening to some song with a banjo yelling, “I will wait for you,” and Dean refuses to acknowledge the irony. 

If Dean buys Cas a little bottle of honey, and spends a moment too long looking at Cas smiling at him, then no one but them needs to know. 

____________________________________

Sam got to live in a house with a dog and a girl and hold her hand and take her out and love her. 

Dean got to run and hide and hunt and be hunted and Benny and Cas are the only ones, the  _ only _ one who get that, who know it, and Benny knows it just the same as Dean, cause human or not, vampire or not, purgatory or earth, they’re the hunted ones. They’re the ones hunted by people like John. 

Maybe even like Sam. 

__________________________________

  
  


Dean’s on his knees, he’s on his knees and he’s bleeding, and the handprint he keeps hidden  _ burns, _ and he needs him, he needs him, he needs him, and he just might let him kill him.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to. 

Cas runs away and Dean prays with all the words he does not say. 

____________________________________

Charlie’s over for her first visit to the bunker since they’ve gotten it, and she arrived equipped with all 6 Star Wars movies. 

They’re crowded up in Dean’s room, Dean and Charlie on the bed and Sam’s pulled up a chair on the side (Dean and Charlie wanted him on the bed, his skin’s pale and he coughs with just a bit more force than he probably should, but the idiot refuses charity and says he’s fine, Dean, really, he’s okay.)

They get through  _ Phantom Menace _ , and Charlie and Dean mock Sam as he tries to defend Jar-Jar. Dean wants to watch the next one, but Sam is about to keel over, and Charlie drove seven hours to get here, so Dean sends Sam off to bed and takes Charlie to her room to help her set it up. 

Dean asks her if she’s up for a trip to the town tomorrow to help him pick out and install a T.V. in the sitting room.

She punches him in the arm and says, “Hell yeah, dude!” and he wishes her a goodnight before he traipses off to his own bed. 

They head out at 10, and Dean pretends that it’s totally normal that Sam’s still asleep and not gloating about his amazing morning run. 

“So, uhh… gotta ask…” Charlie starts, and Dean glances to the side. “Where’s Cas? I thought I was gonna meet him sometime soon.”

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah, uh… he’s got some angel stuff going on right now, maybe uh - maybe next time you come over.”

Charlie looks a little skeptical of Dean’s answer, but doesn’t push it, and instead goes into a tirade about why Anakin deserved better. Dean’s inclined to agree with her, and they spend the drive to the nearest Best Buy complaining about Mace Windu. 

They only pause the conversation to browse the T.V.s at the store, Dean falling back onto Charlie’s technological expertise. She’s caught up in examining the flat screens, and she only absentmindedly turns to Dean and says, “We want the biggest one, right?”

“If it's free, then yeah, but I think we should stick to affordable for the unemployed,” Dean says, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“I’m sorry, have you seen Natalie Portman in  _ Attack of the Clones _ ? That needs to be viewed in the highest definition possible.”

Dean nods, staring at his boots. His hands start fiddling with the insides of his pockets. “Yeah, but, uh... “ Charlie looks at him like she’s about to argue, and Dean speeds up. “Don’t discount Ewan McGregor. He, uh - he should be - that should be in the highest quality… too…” he trails off, his voice getting quiet the longer he speaks. He decides that he’s gonna keep hiding his burning face rather than look at Charlie. 

He can’t see her face, but he thinks he might hear a smile when she says, “Yeah, Dean, I get you.” He lets her buy the biggest flat screen the store has, and once its packed into Charlie’s car and she’s behind the wheel, she says, “I’m glad you told me. I know - it can be hard.”

Dean thinks they’re going to leave it there, so he’s surprised when he chokes out, “No one knows. Sammy doesn’t - I mean my dad wasn’t - I...:” 

She looks over sympathetically. “I won’t tell Dean. If you’re gay, it’s not on me to…” she seems to rethink her sentence. “It’s not my secret to tell.”

“I’m not,” he blurts. She looks over, startled. “Gay. I’m not. I like women. It’s just that- that-” Why the fuck can’t he say this?

“Just that Ewan McGregor is just as hot as Portman?” she fills in.

“Yeah, that.”

“Then you’re probably bi,” she says, and Dean must look a little clueless at that. “Bi? Bisexual? It’s the word for people that like both.”

“Oh.”

“Is that - do you think you might be-?”

“Yeah,” he says, “Maybe.”

She smiles at him, and they don’t talk the rest of the drive.

At the bunker, Dean leaves Charlie to set up the flatscreen, and he grabs his laptop and opens a browser in incognito mode, and settles in for a long round of googling. 

It’s shocking, to have a word tied to him that doesn’t make him feel sick to his stomach. 

When they’re about to start the second movie in the series and Sam’s gone off to make as much popcorn as he can manage, Dean takes the opportunity to mutter to Charlie, just in case Sam developed super hearing along with his trial-sickness, “I think I am, yeah.”

She fucking beams at him, and whispers, “Proud of you, man,” and then she throws herself at him in a hug. 

Sam comes back with two bowls of popcorn, and asks, from a distance, “So… am I invited to the cuddle party too?” 

“Fuck off,” Dean grumbles, righting himself on the couch, and Sam passes Charlie a bowl to give to him as he sits down next to Charlie. 

At Ewan’s first scene, Charlie elbows him in the ribs, and he jostles her when Natalie shows up next. They go back and forth until Sam catches on, and he starts throwing popcorn at them everytime Hayden appears on screen. It’s a good night. 

When they’re all tucked in bed, Dean shoots Charlie a text saying, “I think Cas might be my Ewan.”

She answers, “I know.”

______________________________

Dean prays before he sleeps, now. 

He prays, “How do you - when do you stop being your father’s soldier?”

Castiel doesn’t answer. 

He hasn’t answered in a long time. 

________________________________________

He stares into the mirror and says, “Bisexual.”

But the word doesn’t fit right in his mouth. 

______________________________________________

They’ve got a case in California, and wouldn’t you know it’s in San Francisco, San Fran- _ Fucking _ -Cisco, and Dean could scream. Or laugh. Possibly even keel over and die. 

And just his luck, it’s June, which means its pride fucking  _ everywhere _ , and a goddamned parade. 

And, fuck it, he might as well try, cause Charlie said it might be good and he fucking promised, so he says, “Uh, is it - uhm … I mean -” he clears his throat. “Lots of queer people out, huh?” He tastes the word on his mouth, but it’s too much like  _ him _ , like John, and it sours like a lemon. 

The metaphorical lemon on his tongue starts to rot though, when Sam says, “That word’s a slur, Dean, you really shouldn’t - I mean you know how bigoted that sounds?”

Dean prays for Sam’s ignorance. 

“Not a clue,” he says.

___________________________________

He looks in the mirror, and he says, “I like both.”

For a moment, his burdens lift. 

____________________________________

  
  


Dean directs them to get groceries- anything he thinks he can make good use of, he even buys kale for Sam - and Cas picks out a bottle of rosé and says it has a nice color, he picks out Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms. Dean picks a bottle of beer he thinks Cas will like, and Cas grabs a bottle of strawberry milk and packages of mac and cheese for kids and creamer. Dean takes him to grab bedding and decorations for his room, and Cas grabs a plant and pictures of flowers, he grabs a soft green comforter and a white throw blanket and a fluffy pink pillow. He picks out fairy lights to string up in his room. He even gets a small cat plushie. 

Dean follows him and wonders how Cas is okay with these things, these soft things that would make him feel dainty to own. They pass the women’s section on the way to checkout, and something about getting all these soft things makes Dean’s eyes linger on the lingerie section flashing out to customers. 

Cas smiles at him, all gummy and teeth, and his eyes are so blue.

____________________________________________

  
  


Cas has only been settled in the bunker for two months, only trained with a gun for one (although, based on his sparring sessions with Dean that Sam will spectate when he’s feeling up to it, he’s much better suited to a knife. Dean maybe considers getting him a sword. Maybe some chainmail. He even possibly discusses the idea of bringing Cas up to Moondoor with Charlie. Possibly.) when Sam decides that they’ve been off the field for too long, and finds them a hunt in Texas. 

So Sam goes off to pack his bags, and Dean traipses after Cas to help him pack, directing him what to and what to not take with him (“No, man, you can’t take the plants with you - because I don’t want their dirt all over my car! Just - we can ask Charlie to water them if she’s in the area, okay?”). Dean’s advice of packing light is decidedly ignored, and Cas picks more clothes than strictly necessary so that he’ll have “options,” a polaroid camera that he definitely didn’t get from him - he thinks Sam and Charlie conspired to get him that - and when Dean leaves to assemble his own bags he swears he hears the sound of rustling from the kitchen. 

Ten minutes he finds Sam and Cas standing outside the car, Cas squinting up at him while Sam leans dramatically against the car. They've both conveniently left their bags just beside the car, so Dean’s left to haul all their bags in the car while they have their standoff. 

Dean’s by the driver's side, elbows resting on the top of Baby when Cas says, “This is my first car trip, Sam.”

Dean lets his forearms drop to the roof of the car alongside his elbows, chews on his bottom lip and ponders the absurdities of his life. 

“But I’m sick, Cas,” Sam says, and coughs with more gusto than necessary. When Cas only squints harder, Sam hunches over like he wants to seem small again. 

“I’ve only been human for three months, Sam.” Cas says. 

_ “The fuck is wrong with them?” _ Dean thinks. 

“Well,” Sam smirks, straightening up again, “You know three month olds are not supposed to ride in the front seat, Cas, it’s illegal. It’s not safe.”

Dean stares. Cas gapes. Sam rocks back on heels like he’s won a fucking nobel peace prize in being insufferable. 

Grinning from ear to ear, Sam climbs in the front seat, and after leveling a glare at Dean, Cas grumbles his way into the back seat. 

Dean, flabbergasted by the display, gets behind the wheel, and just as he’s about the turn the ignition, he gets an idea. 

Lifting his hips to reach his back pocket, Dean thumbs open his phone and types out a quick message, angling his body away from Sam before pressing send. 

Nodding to himself, he turns the keys and pointedly ignores the small  _ “Ding!” _ from the backseat.

But when he looks in the rearview window as he starts the drive down the road from the bunker, he sees Cas smiling. 

_ “When we make our first pit stop switch places with him when he’s not looking.” _

Dean can’t help but smile too as he starts the drive to Gruene, Texas. 

After the shit they’ve gone up against, he figures a poltergeist is the best set of training wheels they can have for Cas. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunt isn't the easy salt and burn Dean had counted on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter really ran away from me, but I hope you like it ! :)

They’ve only just crossed into Oklahoma when Sam announces that he needs to pee, now, and Dean better pull over. The second Sam walks off to find some privacy, Cas is diving out the back and into the passenger seat, barely shutting the door behind him. He has cheetos in one hand, and cheeto dust covered in the other, and he looks for all the world like Dean just hung the moon for him. 

Neither of them speak, content to exist in the peace, and Dean regrets breaking it when he snorts at Sam’s arrival, who spreads his arms in indignant betrayal. He huffs as he opens the back seat, and makes a show of stooping low to fit inside the confines of the Impala. 

Dean fishes out a napkin from Cas’s coat pocket for his hands, then guides Cas’s wrist to the glove compartment where Dean keeps all of his tapes, just cause he knows it’ll piss Sam off. 

He hears Sam scoff behind him, and smiles to himself. 

________________

Gruene is just south of Austin, and he hears the click of Cas’s phone camera when he takes half a dozen pictures of the water tower. Dean’s just about to poke fun at Cas for being a fucking tourist already, when he takes note of the buildings. 

It's straight out of an old western and Dean could live here forever. Hell, he just might. Who needs a luxurious bunker when this place exists? 

“Eyes on the road Dean.” Sam calls out from the back. 

“No one likes a backseat driver, Samantha.”

“How would one drive a car from the backseat?” Cas asks. He turns to face Sam. “I understand you may be tall Sam, but I doubt you could reach the pedals comfortably.” 

Dean starts, about to explain the finer points of human speech, when he catches the way Cas’s eyes have crinkled at the edges. “Are you - are you fucking joking?” He also turns to face Sam, who tells him to drive, Dean, Jesus Fucking Christ, “is he fucking with me?” 

“Not currently, no,” Cas says, which, whoa, okay, Dean’s not thinking about, at all, and definitely not anywhere in Sam’s proximity. 

“No one likes a wiseass, Cas,” is what he settles on saying instead of just staring at him. 

Dean pulls into the motel parking spot just as Cas looks at him and says, with utmost solemnity, “Then I’m afraid to inform you, Dean, that you may be quite unpopular.”

Dean stares. Cas stares back, eyes challenging. Sam looks between them. 

“Yeah well, you’re unpopular, you… loser.” Dean says.

“Okay,” Sam says, and slides out the car towards the lobby. 

“Loser?” Cas asks. 

“Shaddup.”

________________

  
  


They decide - well, Dean decides, really, that Sam will talk to the house of the deceased while Dean and Cas poke around at the morgue to examine the body. 

“We already know it’s a poltergeist, Dean, the body doesn’t really matter,” Sam says, laying his fed suit out on his bed. Cas walks to the opposite bed, poking at the fern green comforter before setting his duffle bag on top of it and sitting beside it. 

“We should still check that it’s not an actual monster, we don’t exactly have the manpower to be caught off guard here.” Dean says. “You’re still not doing too great after the trial bullshit, and Cas hasn’t exactly got any field experience with monster shit.”

Cas opens his mouth. 

“ _ As a human, _ ” Dean clarifies before Cas can start.

“I am human,” Cas agrees, “Not a human  _ child _ .” 

“You're good with a knife, but you don’t got the instincts for big game just yet.”

Cas shuts his mouth and fits his smitey face over his features, which would scare Dean if Cas was still in the business of smiting things. (And if Cas looking like that didn’t do  _ things _ to Dean.)

“Okay...” Sam says, “But going to a morgue isn’t a two person job Dean. It might help to have an extra set of eyes talking to the vics.”

“Oh, yeah, cause Columbo here is a great people person.”

Cas looks like he’s about to interject again, so Dean continues, “Look, man, your social skills aren’t great, and it’ll be better to learn those skills when you’re not talking to emotional, grieving people who don’t have the patience for cops right now. What, the vic lost her husband? And has two kids to look after?” Dean directs this to Sam, who nods his confirmation. “She’s not gonna be in the mood for anyone she doesn’t know right now.”

Seeing that he’s winning them over, Dean says, “I’ll drop you off Sam. Wanna meet for some grub later? Saw a diner on our way in.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam sighs. “I’ll get changed.” He grabs at his suit and trudges to the bathroom, yawning as he goes. 

Dean makes his way to his own duffel next to the pullout couch they had gotten, rooting around for his own suit. When Cas makes no move to get up, Dean rolls his eyes and says, “C’mon man, you gotta look the part if you’re gonna play fed.”

Cas nods, as if this is the most solemn task he had ever been given, and begins stripping. Mortified, Dean turns the fuck around, thinking about how Sam was still in the bathroom.    
“Fucking great,” He mutters to no one in particular.

__________________________________

  
  
  


The doctor at the morgue doesn’t look up as they approach her, typing away at her keyboard with bubblegum painted nails until Dean and Cas are directly in front of her, badges flashed. 

“Here to see John Davis’s body,” Dean says, putting his badge away. 

The doctor eyes Cas’s badge, which he still holds out for display. Dean nudges him with his foot, and Cas startles to tuck his badge back into his coat pocket. 

Dean clears his throat, and puts his best “I’m an official person who has a real badge,” face on. Out of the corner of his eye, Cas gives the woman a blank stare. Dean gets ready to have to charm their way past her - or away from her. 

She leans forward, elbows on her desk and rests her head on her raised knuckles, looking first at Cas then studying Dean. Dean braces for the impact of her disbelief. “The suicide? You boys looking to arrest the noose that killed him?”

“He was strangled with an electrical wire,” Cas informes her. “There was no noose involved.”

He shoots Dean a small little look - mouth quirked up just so, his eyes crinkled at the corner. 

Her eyebrow quirks up, and Dean says, “It’s related to another case, just dotting our i’s, miss.”

Cas nods along, and Dean feels Cas’s foot tap against his own. 

She looks at Dean, eyes flicking up and down, and asks, “You sure you boys are feds? I didn’t think the government wanted their officers to be so pretty,” and  _ Oh, god, not here please not now.  _

He feels Cas’s confusion permeate the air, and he knows his head is tilted in her direction. Before Cas can speak, probably to tell her that the FBI does not discriminate based on physical aesthetics, Dean laughs, and hopes to hell it doesn’t sound as empty as it sounds.  _ Goddammit, _ why did everyone always have to call him the same fucking thing, remind him that he didn’t have John’s face but Mom’s. John was long dead and he still haunted Dean, and the only traces of the man left to burn were hidden in Dean himself. 

Outside of Dean’s vision, Cas squinted at the doctor. 

_____________________________

  
  


“Anything strange with the body?” Sam asks, voice tinny through the phone.

“Nah we were right. Just a poltergeist,” Dean says.    
  


“The marks around his neck were quite deep, it was almost as if someone were trying to separate his head from his body rather than strangle him with the cord,” Cas raises his voice to be heard, not quite grasping the mechanics of speakerphone. It’s not cute. 

Dean smiles at him, and he hates the way his heart leaps when Cas’s eyes raise to meet his, warm around the edges. 

“You think our ghost was decapitated?” Sam asks. 

“Or very angry.” Cas answers. 

“Right, well. I’m gonna head back to the motel, look for some old records on the place. You two wanna swing by with dinner?”

“Sure. Me and Cas are gonna stop by the station first, see if the locals don’t have any insider info,” Dean says.

When Dean pulls the car to a stop, Cas lowers his phone and says, “This is not the police station, Dean.”

“The first thing you gotta learn about hunting, Cas,” Dean adjusts his collar, “Is that breaks are a necessity.”

“You’ve hardly exerted yourself today, Dean.” 

Dean turns to him sharply. “You wanna get a drink with me or not? It’s a freaking saloon, Cas, the whole place looks straight outta the wild west. Live a little, Jesus,” he huffs. 

Cas’s mouth lifts at the side, and Dean tracks the movement. “I would not be opposed,” he says, almost carefully. 

“Awesome.” Dean climbs out of the car. “Hey, maybe we can find Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid on T.V. tonight.” Cas only stared back. “It’s a movie. Robert Redford?” Cas stares on, his eyebrows drawn. “Dude, how - its a classic!”

Dean can feel the heat crawling up his neck to his face when Cas’s mouth quirks up in his barely there smile, and could swear he hears fondness when Cas says, “I’m sure we’ll find time for you to show me all the classics, Dean.”

Not quite knowing what to say, Dean pushes the words, “Damn straight,” out of his chest. Cas only smiles infinitesimally more, and walks past him into the entrance. 

The first thing Dean notices, once he’s followed him inside, is that Cas is not interested in the bar so much as he is interested in the bar’s gift shop that it has. Dean’s about to offer to look around with him, when Cas turns to him and asks, “Do you still want to get that drink?”

Dean lets himself imagine some other place, some other life, where Cas asks him that question knowing that they wouldn’t really be getting a drink, just looking for the excuse to lean closer, lips brushing against ears to be heard, drinking each other in with a beer in hand, waiting for the right moment to pull the other outside, maybe climb into a car, maybe fall against a wall and Dean’s getting on his knees, cause that’s what Dean does, and fuck he’d make it good, cause that’s what Cas fucking deserves, is the best, and instead he’s slumming it with humanity and with Dean, but oh, Dean could give him five minutes of bliss inside of that mortal lifetime of shit that Cas has now, and Dean mentally beats himself with a stop sign, because what the fuck,  _ Not right fucking here in front of Cas in goddamn Texas, No. _

He’s not quite sure how long he’s spent inside his own head since Cas seems to have no opinion on waiting for answers - he has no idea on how long is too long to wait for anything. Cas used to text him updates on his search for God when the apocalypse was looming over them, unaware that Dean had switched numbers and hadn’t received his message. Cas would show up two weeks later, not sure why Dean was mad that he hadn’t kept in contact because, “I texted you Dean - I assumed you were formulating a response.”

So instead of asking how long he’s just been staring at Cas thinking of pulling him out back to blow him - _ No, still not thinking those thoughts -  _ he just says, “Nah it can wait. Wanna look around?” nodding over to the gift shop.

Cas nods, just this side of overly eager, and grabs Dean's sleeve to direct him along. 

There’s little stands of stuffed animals - mostly woodland creatures, and Dean almost buys a stuffed moose for Sam, just to piss him off. There’s various t-shirts as well, some praising Texas, some praising Gruene, and some praising whiskey.  _ Amen, brother _ , Dean thinks. 

The shop holds a conglomerate of items to tempt potential customers, and Dean can appreciate the variety. Dean watches and follows along as Cas drifts to the scented candles, testing each one - they both agree that vanilla is too strong, and Cas wrinkles his nose at the pine candle, which Dean laughs at. Cas picks up a rose candle, and says it smells sweet. He inhales deeply, and looks almost at peace. Dean wants to ask how Cas can just…. Do that. Dean wants to preserve that look on Cas’s face. Dean says, “Well get it then.”

Cas winds his way around, surveying little clocks and watches, pieces of cross stitch that say “Home is where the heart is,” in decorative lettering, bookmarks and maps when he lands at a cardboard box full of cassette tapes, with a sign taped onto it reading, “$1 for 1 cassette.”

Cas angles his body towards Dean’s and asks, like he knows the answer but wants to hear it from Dean anyways, “These are what you use for your music, yes?”

“Yeah man.” Dean reaches to take the candle from Cas’s hand, “You wanna look for some good ones? We can probably get a boombox or something that plays tapes.”

Cas lifts a brow. “Could I play them in the car?”

Dean pauses. “Only if you pick good music. C’mon, wonderboy, have at it. No fucking Nickleback.”

Cas accepts the challenge for what it is, picking through the box. Dean quietly also looks at all the tapes, looking for anything he thinks Cas may like. 

Nimble fingers card through the tapes before they pause. Dean watches Cas examine the tape, turning it front and back as if he can absorb the music into his being just from holding it. Dean stills Cas’s wrist, and reads, “The Beatles, huh? You a fan?” Unbidden thoughts of Mom spring to his head and he pushes them away. 

Cas studies the tape still. “I did a lot of hitchhiking to reach the bunker. One woman - Katherine, I believe her name was - played this particular band a lot. I enjoyed most of it - there was one about the sun that I liked - but I’m unfamiliar with, ‘Rubber Soul.’

Dean clears his throat. “It’s a good one. Here Comes the Sun isn’t on it, but we can uh - we can look for it.”

Cas smiles beautifically. “I’d like that, Dean.”

“So, uhm - drinks?” Dean takes the tape from Cas and strides to the register, hand reaching to his wallet. 

________________

  
  


Cas’s gift bag hangs off of his wrist, and they sit in relative silence, Dean occasionally pointing out the people he’d target for a game of pool. Cas is talking about a memory of when people first discovered alcohol when the man sitting besides them pokes at Dean’s shoulder and slurs out something about meeting Dean out back for a good time with a leer - and  _ Fuck, what about today is making Dean a magnet for this shit? _

Dean says, “Ah, Sorry man, no dice.” and is going to turn back to Cas, hoping that he didn’t understand what the man was saying.    
  


“Mouth like yours says otherwise,” The man disagrees, getting the attention of a few other patrons. “Bet you’d know how to make it real good for me.” 

And Dean is so over this shit, tired of the way his body seems to be a beacon for this type of attention, tired of the way saying no is battle, every goddamn time. He almost wants to concede, wants to give in, give this asshat the best blowjob of his life that he’ll never remember, but - but Cas is here. He doesn't have to, shouldn’t have to see the whole depth of who Dean is. Who he was. Who he never managed to shake off. “C’mon,” the man says, adopting a faux british accent. “You can’t tell me you don’t want a little fag?”

He pulls Cas out of the bar, tries to get them out of there before Dean just does it, but Cas doesn’t move. He stands as Dean pulls at him, but moves his weight against Dean’s, and for the first time Dean notices the glare Cas levies at the drunk. Without saying anything he looks the way he used to, the way that used to scare Dean, bag still dangling from his wrist. 

“C’mon, Cas.”

The man’s too drunk to comprehend fear, and laughs, saying “You volunteering? I could have fun with you too.”

“Cas, we gotta get to the police station still, huh? Gotta ask about those records.” Dean tightens his grip on Cas’s bicep, and he feels Cas strain against him. “Cas, not here, please.”

That catches Cas’s attention, and he turns to look at Dean. When Dean pulls at his arm again, Cas lets himself follow the motion. 

Dean reigns in his temper till they're outside, but once they hit cool sunset air all bets are off. “What the hell, man!”

“He was making you uncomfortable.”

“People make each other uncomfortable all the time! That doesn’t mean we get all-”  _ Don’t say smitey don’t say smitey - “ _ Murderey about it!”

“I wouldn’t have murdered him,” Cas says, looking vaguely offended. 

“Maimey then. Should have just left it.”

Cas clearly disagrees. “Would you have tolerated him speaking like that to someone else? A woman?”

“I’m not a fucking woman-”

“Sam? Me?” Cas continues as if he were never interrupted. 

“That’s fucking different,” Dean snaps. 

Cas tilts his head.  _ Fuck _ . “How so?”

_ Because I deserve it. Because it’s who I am. Because if you asked, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Because you’re the reason I said no, cause I only want you. Because you can’t see that side of me. Because if you did you’d leave.  _ He prays. He knows Cas won’t hear him, but he prays. 

“Because it just fucking is.” Cas looks unsatisfied with that answer, but allows Dean to tell him to get into the car. 

The drive to the station is quiet, blue eyes on Dean from beginning to end. 

________________

The police are a little dubious of feds investigating an apparent suicide, but Cas just feeds them the same line Dean fed the coroner, and they hand over the files readily enough. 

There’s blessedly little history of violence in the house - two deaths. One elderly man who fell down the stairs forty years ago, whose wife was briefly investigated but found innocent, and one suicide almost a year ago. 

“It fits, right? This says the kid hung himself - our vic had marks around his neck.”

“But the wiring was not formed like a noose,” Cas says.

“Well, same essential method, right? Rope around throat, gets yanked, boom! Body.” Dean says. “This is probably our guy.”

Dean hands an officer his card and instructs her to call if anything else comes up. “Anything at all,” Cas says solemnly. Dean snorts. 

They’re on the way back to the motel from a local diner with pecan pie when Cas says, unprompted, “What I don’t understand is why you were uncomfortable at the morgue.” 

Dean says, “Wha-?” before Cas continues over him. 

“I’m aware that human flirtation is at times beyond me, but I have never seen someone’s mild advances be so unwelcome. The man at the bar was crass and overly assertive, but I have never known you to be insecure, Dean.”

“The hell are you talking about, man?”

“You responded with obvious discomfort when the coroner asserted that you were too attractive to be a member of the FBI - what I fail to understand is why that made you uncomfortable. You are an attractive human being, Dean, and I-”   
  
Dean doesn’t catch the rest of that sentence because his mind’s too busy blue screening at this newfound revelation that Cas thinks he’s attractive. 

“It’s unlike you to be insecure about your physical aesthetics.” 

Dean only hears static. 

He lets his focus drift from the traffic and bleed into the conversation. “Look, man, it's not -” his voice gets stuck somewhere in his stomach. He tried again. “It doesn’t matter, ok? She was just looking for something that I can’t be.”

Cas opens his mouth, so Dean turns the radio up and on. 

If Cas says anything, Dean doesn’t hear it. 

________________

  
  


“Find anything at the station?” Sam reaches for the takeout bag, rooting around for his food. 

“There was a sucide a year ago - an Eli Davis. An elderly man fell down the stairs several years ago as well, though I doubt the man’s spirit would have any cause for unrest,” Cas puts his candle and tape aside his duffle, grabbing the bag of food from Sam as he goes. He rifles around through it, grabbing his burger and fries and moving to sit on the bed. Dean sits next to him, Cas passing his own food to Dean. Sam mixes his dressing into his salad, and Cas peeks under the bun of his burger, handing Dean his onions. 

“So,” Sam says around his mouthful of food, “Mrs.Davis said her and her husband were in a rough patch, trying to work through it.” He swallows. “Her son, Eli, killed himself last year - she said he was having trouble with his time at school and was fighting with his dad about it.”

“So, what,” Dean takes a bite and stifles a moan around the burger. The meat is juicy and the cheese has saturated the burger, and the bun is crispy around the edges. He takes another bite for saying, “You think mom and dad were having a fight, kids already got beef with his dad, so he takes him out, Oedipus style?”

“Something like that,” Sam agrees. “He’s at the graveyard at the outside of town, figure we’ll go in after we eat. You up to dig up a body for the first time?” He asks Cas.

Cas nodded. “Though I’m not certain it is the boy.” 

“Well,” Sam grinned. “Only one way to find out?”

________________

Digging up the body is uneventful. 

Sam oh so helpfully volunteers himself as the first guard, leaving Dean and Cas to dig up the first couple of feet alone. If Cas has any complaints, he doesn’t voice them, only passes Dean a water bottle before taking sips from it himself. 

It’s easy for Dean to lose himself in the work, in the easy swing and crack of the shovel against the earth. Dean almost misses the ache in his shoulder, but after another fifteen minutes he can feel the grind in the bones of his shoulder in every swing. He calls Sam to take his place, and coaxes Cas into taking a break as well. Dean picks up water bottle duty, passing it along to Cas and sharing sips between them, watching Cas’s throat work to swallow each gulp. 

When Cas starts up again Dean pays more attention to the splay of his back then actual guard duty. He doesn’t realize that Cas is asking to switch places until Sam clears his throat, looking at Dean significantly. 

Dean’s sore and aching by the time they finally get back to the motel, and he’s tired enough to let Sam take the first shower while he all but collapses onto his pull-out couch. “You gonna be good to be on the road by breakfast?” Dean asks into his pillow. 

“Actually, I’d like to go to the Davis house tomorrow, speak with the family.” Cas pauses. “I’d like to tell them I’m sorry for their loss - losing two loved ones in only a year.”

Dean smudges his face into his pillow, replicating a nod as best as he can. He almost thinks he hears Cas huff a laugh. “Good to go by lunch then?”

“Mm. We can go to that diner again. I enjoyed their burger.”

“Sure man. Maybe you won’t get onions this time.”

“Maybe they’ll give you mine instead.” Dean tries to laugh, but he thinks it comes off as more of an aborted snore. “Sleep, Dean,” he says, but Dean’s already drifting off.

________________

After Cas leaves to speak to the family, Dean climbs into the shower, looking to relieve the tension in his body from the previous day. He pulls at his dick, thinking of the coroner, curly brown hair ending at her breasts, that were framed by her button up, eyes looking up at him, and it leaves him half hard, till her voice is in his ear telling him he’s too pretty. And well, he knows what pretty boys are good for. 

“I like both,” he mumbles. “I like both, I like both,” and he thinks about that stupid fucking asshole from the bar, how things would go if Cas wasn't - if Cas -

“I like both, I l- I like both I… oh  _ fuck, Cas _ -” Aaaaannndd Dean’s done, Dean’s cutting himself off, shoving his fist in his mouth, back braced on the shower wall, water beating over his head, and fuck, Cas would feel so goddamn good in his mouth, and Dean wants, laves his tongue over his knuckles, thinks about being used by Castiel, and  _ oh god, so fucking close _ , and he imagines what it would be like to be  _ loved _ by Castiel, and that’s it, he’s done, he’s crashing, spilling over, hips jutting out pushing him further into his own grip, biting teeth marks into his fist. He tips his head against the wall, and he breaths. 

________________

  
  


Cas slides into their booth, jaw set. “It wasn’t Eli.”

“What?” Sam asks. Dean doesn’t make eye-contact.

“The spirit is still active. Mrs.Davis’s child - Julie - said her and her friend had the same monster living in their homes.”

“Her friend?” Dean took a gulp of his coffee.

“Her next door neighbor, Mark.” The waitress stops for their food orders, winking at Sam as she leaves. “I went to his house, and they reported cold spots, things moving as well. So, I went to the other neighbors houses. The three houses around the Davis home have all been experiencing paranormal activity.” 

“Awesome!” Dean threw his hands up in the air. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” Cas says, unfazed. “The marital troubles Mrs.Davis spoke of? Her husband had an affair that they were ‘working through.’ And,” the waitress sets their food in front of them, and Dean reaches forward to peer under the bun of Cas’s burger to look for onions. “Whoever the spirit is, they don’t like me.” 

________________

Back at the motel, Sam’s fingers clack against his keyboard, occasionally reaching for his to-go cup from Marie’s (their diner of choice). Dean lays back on the bed closest to the door, a pillow propping up his back as he scrolls through the article on his laptop, eyes unseeing with Cas’s arm reaching behind him to support himself, ghosts of his breath occasionally reaching Dean’s neck. Dean had volunteered to help show Cas the best way to find information on the internet, (On his first night with a laptop he had gotten distracted by cat videos in his quest for new clothes. Dean had found him, bleary eyed and squinty in the morning, and vowed to introduce him to coffee and in person shopping after he packed Cas off to bed.) but he hadn’t realized just how damn distracting Cas was gonna be. Cas shifts forward, his chest firm on Dean’s back, and his voice sends waves across Dean’s body when he murmurs, almost directly into Dean’s ear, “Isn’t that of importance?”

Dean does his damndest to not shiver into Cas’s frame, focusing his eyes instead on the screen where Cas’s finger pointed. “Huh,” he says for Cas to hear. “Yeah, yeah you’re onto something.” He clears his throat and says, this time for Sam, “Think I got something over here.”

“Yeah, me too. So, apparently, those other three houses Cas went too? They’ve had freaky deaths too, dating back to 1957, back when those houses were built. There’s also,” his fingers switched to another tab, “A connection between most of the vics.”

“Mm?” Dean leaned back, realizing too late that Cas’s arm was behind him again, and forced himself to act like leaning his weight into his friend's outstretched arm was normal. Cas, for his part, leaned his arm into Dean to help prop him up further, his opposite hand reaching to adjust the laptop that swayed dangerously in Dean’s lap. 

“Yeah, uh… so most of them cheated, or had some sort of affair, and some of the spouses said they knew or suspected it.” 

“Which fits with Carrie Davis’s marital troubles before her husband’s death.” Cas shifts minutely, and Dean may or may not hold his breath. 

“Right. And, the other vics might’ve been better at hiding it, so their husbands and wives wouldn’t have known.”

“Well,” Dean inhales, “There was this guy in the 40s, uh-”

“Thomas Jones,” Cas intones.

“-Thomas Jones and Benjamin Miller were business partners, they were gonna build cars and shit, but Ben skipped out on Tom, thought he was too irresponsible to manage it.”

“This article says,” Cas redirects the laptop his way, and Dean leans further to the left to give Cas better access to the computer. “That Miller had started causing trouble and was killed by local police in self defense, and was buried in a nondescript field.”   
  


“Which matches the location of the affected houses,” Dean finishes, shutting the laptop.

“So, what,” Sam scrubs a hand down his face, “We thinking, guy goes after people who break their vows?”

“Could be. It would certainly explain why those having affairs were targeted. And why all four houses are experiencing symptoms, if the body was buried at the point where all four properties meet.”

“Why’s the spirit coming after you though? I don’t think you’ve been in enough relationships to cheat on anyone.” Dean twists to look at Cas.

“Dean, my existence as an angel was a vow to heaven,” Cas swallows, a human gesture, and  _ oh, right. Shit. _ “By falling, becoming human - I’ve more than broken that oath.”   
  


A silence settles over the room, broken by Sam clearing his throat. 

“So we just gotta bury and burn a body on someone’s home.” Sam supplies.

“Four people's homes, actually.” 

Sam huffs a laugh. “Alright. I saw a Mexican place, wanna do that? I’ll grab it.”

Dean jumps when his phone buzzes in his pockets, and he sits up fully, separating himself from Cas to answer. “Hello?”

“Agent Harrison? There’s been an, uh, accident, at the Tuck house, next to the one you and your partner were looking into. Probably nothing, but you said to call if anything came up.”

“Yeah, sure, my partner and I’ll be right there,” Hanging up, Dean turns to Sam. “Something’s up.”

________________

  
  


Dean and Cas pull up directly behind the ambulance, Dean gliding out as a gurney lifts what was presumably Bob Tuck into its carriage, the man insisting he was fine. Cas flashes his badge at the EMTs, still lingering just a tad too long for Dean’s liking. “Mr.Tuck?” Cas says, body shaded in the 10 o’clock night. 

“Agent Gillan! I didn’t know the FBI deals in accidents,” he said, a smile in his voice. 

Dean left Cas to interview the vic, opting instead to look for his wife. He finds her standing on her porch, an arm wrapped around her middle, fiddling with the edge of her robe, the other arm grasping the white railing. Her gray-white hair is stacked onto her head, and Dean thinks she seems ready to knock the police officer speaking to her on the head with the rocking chair behind her. Standing a cautious distance away, Dean flashes his badge, asking, “Mrs.Tuck?”

She turns to him, looking rather unimpressed at the badge. “Peggy,” she frowns.

“Peggy,” Dean nods. “Can you walk me through what happened?” 

The arm from around her middle raises in an angry shrug. “His head was hit. Tell me, agent…”

“Agent Harrison.”

“Agent Harrison, is my husband’s accident of national importance? If it is I’d damn well hope social security would pay us more.”

“No, ma’am-”   
  
“Don’t you ma’am me, boy.” Her arm waves towards him. “Peggy, l said. If I give you my name you’re sure as hell gonna use it.”   
  


Dean nods, body stiff in front of her austere frame. “Peggy, my partner and I are investigating a separate case, and were called in by the police. We’re sure everything is fine.”   
  


“Not fine,” she scowls. “My husband is in an ambulance at the moment.” 

Dean’s prepared to make his excuses and run - right now he thinks he might be the latest victim to the rocking chair - when Cas walks up, his hand skimming Dean’s shoulder. “Peggy,” He greets, and Dean nearly starts as she damn near looks pleased to see him, her eyes reflecting the porch light like a beam.. 

“Agent Gillan,” She says. Pleased as she may seem, her eyebrow arches up in a challenge. 

“Your husband says that the vase flew at him on it’s own. Did you happen to see it?”

“I did.”

Cas nods. “I’ll tell the EMTs that a concussion is unlikely then.”

“It would be appreciated. Bob’s just bruised, nothing he can’t sleep off,” She says with a scoff.

“M - Peggy,” Dean corrects himself at her sharp turn to him. “Did you happen to notice a chill, when your husband was hit?”

“I often experience chills, agent,” She tugged at her robe. “The elderly aren’t known for being space heaters.”

“Right, of course.” Cas’s hand brushes from Dean’s shoulder to his arm, before falling away completely. “Well I’ll just - I’ll go somewhere else.”

“To your job, maybe?” She suggests. 

“He’s still looking for it,” Cas smiles at him. 

“Oh yes, I’m sure D.C. is very difficult to find,” She answers.

“Well, it is very small,” Dean rubs at his jaw. “Glasses might help, if you’re losing your vision.”

Peggy barks a laugh. Dean nods at Cas and says, “Agent Gillan,” patting Cas on the shoulder as he walks away. At the last second he turns to face Peggy, nodding his head as he says, “Agent Carter.”

He grins as he hears Peggy ask who the hell Agent Carter is, head tipping down when Cas rumbles back, “I don’t understand it either.”

He’s walking over to where he’s guessing all the properties meet, in a corner behind the house, looking for the burial spot. He’s content to imagine Cas’s hands tracing his back, grabbing hold of his shoulders, and he’s so lost in phantom sensation that he almost doesn’t notice the extra set of footsteps coming up behind him. 

Well not really. 

John was thorough, making sure Dean knew that mistakes - thinking, not thinking, not eating (Make sure you feed Sammy, Dean), being stupid (Don’t get smart with me), worrying about others (Look out for Sammy) were gonna get people killed. Get Dean killed - and with Dean dead Sam wouldn’t have anyone looking out for him. Nothing really sneaks up on Dean, everything passing a threat analysis of  _ smells like blood walks too fast to be human walks too fast to be healthy smells like sulfur smells like blood smells like blood is smelling my blood Watch Out For Sammy.  _

Whoever’s shoes snicked across the wet grass didn’t sneak up on Dean, but he let them get closer, let his body sink in Cas’s hand at his hip, his hand curled in his, his hand in his hair, his body taught like a bow or curled up against him, for just a second longer. And a second longer still. 

But when the normal  _ someone’s tailing me _ jitters rose up too close to his throat to ignore, he turned on his heel to find - 

The police officer from Peggy’s porch. 

Dean nods, slightly less aggrieved than he had been feeling a moment prior. “Officer.” 

The guy nods back, saying “Agent,” with a full bodied sway that looks too cocky to be fully sober, and Dean purses his lips and waits for the guy to go away, thinking the conversation is done with. Officer Annoying, however, has his own plans, and says, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Well, I was just wondering- when exactly did the Feds start hiring fags?”

Dean feels his body go sheet white. He turns further still, body shaking with rage, with fear, with memories, and near growls, “The fuck you just say to me?” 

The officer seems to get only more intoxicated by his own cockiness, saying, “C’mon, mouth like yours? I bet you love sucking your ‘partner’ out there off under his desk like a good little gi-”

He’s against the wall and frozen for lack of air before he finishes the thought, and Dean is a helpless mass of rage as he rears his fist back - 

And punches Officer Fucking-Dick in the eye before he can start to work the air into his lungs.

He’s about to rip into the guy, potential witnesses be damned, when he starts fucking  _ laughing _ . 

It’s hard to identify as laughter at first, coming out broken between coughs, and it’s a wheezy, slimy sounding thing, but it’s laughter. “Hows ‘bout,” he slurs, “I tell my superior officer all about the things I saw the two feds doin by Little Peggy Tuck’s rose bushes when they thought no one could see ‘em. Or,” his eye is a motley thing, and he struggles to hold it open as he stares straight at Dean’s mouth. “Or you put that pretty little mouth of yours to work, just the way your partner likes it.”

And, well. 

What’s one more, really?

The officer’s dick is as slimy as his laugh is, but Dean knows all the tricks - play with the head, use your hands, hum, moan, use your tongue, shield your damn teeth, play with his balls, give him his money’s worth. He almost falls back into who he was as a teenager,  _ gotta feed Sammy, gotta protect Sammy. _ Gotta protect Cas, now, too. 

He pulls out to wrap his tongue around him, but the dude comes, unexpected, unwarned, and the flush of it is warm on Dean’s face. He turns his head to wipe it off with his sleeve -  _ fucking gross 20 something year old has no fucking control.  _ He’s up and shoving himself away, wiping jizz off of his face with the sleeve of his suit jacket, walking, almost running, turning the corner, getting the fuck out of dodge. Cas is still on the porch, and Dean barks out, “Agent! Lets go,” as he passes, not checking to see if Cas actually does follow him. 

They’re almost at the car, almost escaping when Officer Premature Ejaculation (Though, Dean supposes, at least he didn’t take a full ten fucking minutes.) calls out “Agent!” and Dean knows well enough to keep walking, but Cas,  _ the asshole _ , doesn’t, so he turns and waits for the cop to catch up to him. 

Dean can only stand by the car and wait.

“You’re a lucky man,” the cop says. “Good a real good, uh,  _ partner _ .” and oh, there it is, that fucking head tilt that’s more endearing than it has any right to be. “Got a chance to speak with him - got a real talented tongue.” And with a wink he’s off, headed towards his own car. 

Cas turns to look at Dean, and Dean wills him to just get in the goddamned car. 

A beat passes.

Dean can’t see Cas’s face in the dim lighting, but he recognizes the stance and stride of an angel of heaven about to smite some unlucky motherfucker. “What was he implying, Dean?”

“Nothing, Cas, c’mon, get in the car.”

“That wasn’t nothing, Dean -”

“Yes, it fucking was, Cas, get in -”

“I am not a child -”

“You might as well be!” Dean hisses. “You don’t know jack from shit, Cas, I do. So get in the goddamn car, or so help me -”

“You have grass stains on your pants.” Cas says dully, and then he’s walking forward, pressing into Dean’s space, grabbing hold of his arm, and too late, Dean realizes what he’s doing. “And there is semen on your arm.” They’re so close that the breath from Cas’s words brush across Dean’s face.

The silence between them boils over till Dean says, “Get in the car, Cas.”

“Dean-”

“We’re not having this conversation here. So get,” Dean grounds out, “Into the fucking car.”

Cas listens, thank fucking god. 

Dean’s not planning on doing any goddamn talking though, and he turns the volume dial up on the radio the second the key is in the ignition. Cas hand darts out to bat Dean’s hand off of the dial, turning the volume back down to zero and holding it there.

Dean decides that if he can’t avoid the conversation fully then he’ll try to make it as short as possible, and he peels off of the curb and into the road as fast as the Impala will let him, tires squealing as they go. Cas can talk all he wants, but that doesn’t mean Dean has to answer.

“I don't know why you accept this- this abuse-”

“Its not fucking abuse, what the hell,” Dean feels the words tear their way past his throat, and  _ just great _ , there goes the not talking plan, “Cas, I fucking blew a guy, that’s all!”  _ Oh god they’re going this, they’re really doing this, Dean fucking said that, out fucking loud- _

“Under duress, with at least a dozen other people on the premises-”

“I’m a big fan of danger.”

“Who then bragged about it to me, someone who he believed to be a federal officer. You let the man from the bar-” 

“That dude didn't do shit-”

“He verbally degraded you and you didn't defend yourself, didn't want me to defend you-”

“I don’t need you to fucking save me, I’m not some damned girl-”

“Needing help isn’t the same as being female, Dean.”   
  


“I fucking know that-!”

“Then why do you conflate your insecurities of being weak with being female?”

“No, you know what Cas, the problem here is that you need to learn how to pick your fucking battles!”

“I am choosing to fight your battles, Dean, so why the fuck,” oh god he’s swearing now, and that’s definitely not hot (except for the part where it  _ is _ ), and this isn’t the fucking time or place (but Dean wouldn’t mind making time for it in the backseat -  _ goddamnnit, no _ ), “Aren’t you? Why do you fight for every cause on the earth except for your own-” 

_ “Because this is what I fucking deserve!”  _ Dean heaves.

Time pauses. Dilates

A millisecond passes

. 

A millenia passes.

Dean exhales. 

On the passenger side, Cas inhales. 

“Dean-”

“Shut up.”

“ _ Dean-” _

“Cas, I will crash this car to keep you silent.”

The car is blessedly silent. Dean only has his thoughts to fill his mind. 

Dean prays to Cas. 

He doesn’t answer. 

They don’t speak, until Dean has parked the car and is about to slide his key into the motel door, and Cas says, quiet enough that Dean could ignore, “You deserve all the good in the world Dean - it saddens me that there are hells you accept as your life.”

But the thing is, even if Dean did deserve better, he would still be undeserving of Castiel. 

So Dean ignores it, cause it’s all too much right now, and he can’t turn around without reaching for Cas, and he can’t answer without his voice breaking. So he walks forward, bypassing the tamales waiting for him, straight for the shower, then straight for the slightly cold food, then straight for the couch - that Cas is sitting on.

“I thought I’d be here tonight. You take the bed - It’ll be better for your shoulder.” His shoulder isn’t that bad - only a dull ache after sleeping off the pain last night, and his shower this morning (And oh,  _ God _ , that shower) - but Cas is an immovable bastard when he needs to be, and Dean can’t take one more minute of consciousness.

He drifts off to Sam snoring in the other bed, Cas’s phantom arms wrapped around him. 

________________

He dreams an old memory, of a handprint being seared into his being.

________________

  
  


Cas had needed things, human things, clothes and toiletries and food that he actually likes and after his online shopping failure, and while Sam had been the first to volunteer to take him to the store, Dean had overridden Sam, said he needed all the rest he could get. Really, Dean was glad for the excuse to tie Cas’s humanity to himself, make sure Cas’s presence at the bunker is permanent. Dean had wanted to be the one to show Cas what food he likes, introduce him to good beer - Dean had a particular type of whiskey in mind he was pretty sure Cas would like. 

Sam had the audacity to act grateful for Dean taking over Cas Duty, took it to mean that Dean was giving up on Sam Duty, had said he “Needs some space, Jesus, Dean, I’m not gonna combust if I walk ten feet.” Cas pointed out that he could, if he were to walk through a particular set of chemicals, and Sam only stared at him. 

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean rocked back on his heels. “Gotta be careful man, ya never know what’s gonna happen.”

Sam had said “Get fucked,” grabbed an apple, and slumped off to his room.

Dean had picked out flannel shirts for Cas, offered them out for his approval, and watched as Cas damn near melted at the soft texture - before he raised an eyebrow at Dean and asked, “Is this the Winchester Initiation?”

Dean had snorted a laugh, and said, “Listen buddy, there are certain rules to staying at the super secret underground monster hunting clubhouse.”

“Is that the official name?”

“Shaddup,” Dean had grinned, tossing the shirts into the cart, and Cas grinned back, bright and gummy. 

Dean had walked over to the t-shirts, but Cas stayed with the button ups. His eyes traced the shirts until his hand landed on a short sleeved button down, baby blue and dotted with blooming sunflowers. His thumb had circled a button that seemed to hide in the pattern of the shirt. Dean had stepped forward, and Cas had turned to look at him, hand still tracing the button and eyes wide.

So of course Dean had grabbed the shirt that had to be in Cas’s size and added it to the cart. Cas’s eyes had tracked the motion, head slanted to the left, eyes crinkled at Dean fondly. Dean had followed Cas around, watched him grab prettily patterned shirts that Dean wouldn’t be caught dead in. 

Later, after they had moved on from clothes and into groceries, Cas had grabbed everything that caught his eye, ros é and strawberry milk and his sugary creamer, and Dean wondered how Cas could pick out all these pretty things.

Cas had gotten his pink pillow and cat plushie and fairy lights (Which Dean had tried to string up, before calling Sam in to help, pretending that he couldn’t hear Cas laughing and rolling his eyes at him.) And Dean knew that whatever he was feeling for Cas - and he knew what it was, but putting a name to it wouldn’t have helped anything right then - wasn’t enough. Cas wanted soft, pretty things, and Dean wasn’t, couldn’t be that. Not Dean. Not John’s boy. 

________________

They’re at the gravesite at three in the morning (Sam had rudely shaken him awake half an hour ago and Dean had cursed under his breath for the first ten minutes after waking up), digging up another fucking grave, trying to stay low to the ground. Dean really doesn’t wanna find out what Peggy will do if she finds them digging on a portion of her land. Or any of her neighbors, for that matter. 

The ghost only bothers to show up to defend himself once they’ve reached the pine box he’s buried in (Dean’s not about to question why they never show up to the party before the last possible second), and decides that he’s not even going to bother to take out Dean, the only one holding a lighter, and instead goes after Cas. 

Dean hears the wind leave Cas’s lungs and Sam’s squawk and the ghost is yelling, which is really working against the incognito energy that they’re going for, and his hands are shaking and  _ why the fuck does this lighter never fucking light when I need it to? _

He hears punches landing, and he glances behind him to see Cas’s iron fire poker being thrown out of hands and ghostly hands grabbing at his throat, Sam diving after the fire poker, and Dean finally gets the the lighter lit and he throws it down into the grave before he’s sprinting to Cas, watching him inhale deeply as Thomas Jones bursts into flames above him. 

As soon as he's gone Dean’s on Cas, holding the side of his neck, smoothing his thumb over the forming bruises, petting at his hair, and he distantly hears himself saying, “It’s okay, you’re okay, just breathe for me, sweetheart, okay?”

He only stops when Cas says, “I’m fine, Dean,” and then Dean’s pulling away and back, retreating for his shovel, telling Sam and Cas to get back to the car. 

Sam sits in the back with Cas, handing him a candybar from the snack duffel as they make the drive back to the motel.

________________

  
  


They’re packed and ready to leave the next (Same?) morning. Dean’s loading the bags in the back and Sam and Cas both insist the other take the front seat, squinting at each other in the early morning light. It's a pathetic looking standoff, both of them slumped against the car doors, coffee cups in hand, and Dean has no issue interrupting them to say, “Sam you’re in the front. Cas you take the back, it’ll be easier for you to take a nap there.”

Sam’s never looked happier to take Dean’s word as gospel, and he falls into the passenger seat, carefully balancing his precious cup of coffee. Dean shuts the trunk door, and is halfway to the driver’s seat when Cas cuts Dean off before he can get there, hand held out and holding… a tape. The tape from the bar. “Can you play this?”

Dean grunts a nod, accepting the tape on his way to the seat, and he watches Cas get settled in the rearview mirror. 

The pull onto the road as Drive My Car plays, and Dean snorts at the irony. The music is peaceful, a nice background noise to rest on, and the songs switch to Norwegian Wood to Nowhere Man. 

But when In My Life comes on, Dean can’t help but draw similarities to his own life. He knows, definitively, somewhere in his soul, that he will never be loved the way he is loved. 

That Cas sees him for the broken thing he is, sees what Dean is good for. Cas wants pretty things, and Dean knows what pretty things are good for. If Cas decides that he wants Dean, for all of his prettiness, Dean knows he’ll let him use him, and break him. He’s already got the one brand from Cas on his arm; what’s one more?

Dean knows he will never be loved the way that he loves Castiel. 

_ Though I know I’ll never lose affection,  _

_ For people and things, that went before. _

_ I know I’ll often stop and think about them.  _

_ In my life, I love you more.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm gonna try to have the next chapter up as soon as possible, and you can find me @compromisedandconfused on tumblr :)


End file.
